


Four Musketeers and One Deadly Maze

by libraryv



Series: Shots of Musketeer Adrenaline [7]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fighting, Gen, Plot What Plot, Violence, mazes, swashbuckling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27157558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraryv/pseuds/libraryv
Summary: Aramis and the others are trapped in a race against time, and a maze.
Series: Shots of Musketeer Adrenaline [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1450180
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	Four Musketeers and One Deadly Maze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [under_my_blue_umbrella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_my_blue_umbrella/gifts).



> This is for the lovely under_my_blue_umbrella, incredible writer and even more incredible person. It's her birthday! She's basically a musketeer rock star, so here's a one-shot of the boys being musketeer rock stars.

This night is impossible.

They’ll never make it out alive.

“Aramis.” 

His name is carried on the wind, and Aramis turns, immediately lifting his gun and holding it steadily at the wall of green shrubbery behind him. He remains silent, waiting. 

The foliage rustles, sending a spray of tiny, waxy green leaves to the rocky path. 

“Aaaaaaramis.” This time, it’s a mournful moan that lingers among the branches and sends shivers down his spine.

Still, Aramis says nothing, his breath coming in incandescent puffs in the frigid night, but in the deep silence of the labyrinth, there is the sound of a gun being cocked.

His.

The rustling stops, and Aramis knows what will happen next. 

The gleaming barrel of an arquebus noses through the bush, with a menacing black hole of a mouth, but Aramis has already fired.

There’s barely a scream; it’s buried beneath the crack of the gunshot, whipping right up to the canopy of stars above him. 

Then: the reassuring sound of a body collapsing, deadweight, to the ground.

Aramis reloads with calloused fingers made quick and sure with years of practice. He’s running out of time.

He continues, turning left, then right, boots barely making a sound on the graveled path. He thinks Athos might have told him once that there was a trick to these, but he can’t conjure up what it could be.

He doesn’t know how much time they have left; he thinks maybe a quarter of an hour, but then the panic rises, choking him, and he steels himself to keep moving. 

Corner after corner, swift and desperate, the leather of his bandolier digging into his ribs. He embraces the pain; it’s a sharp point of focus in this hellish game meant to confuse him, to make sure they don't retrieve the key, or find Treville and the rest of the men.

He turns again, and there in the clearing is a statue, frozen eternally in marble and moonlight.

The statue is clothed. No. Wait.

It’s Athos, hands and feet tied, stripped to the waist, pale skin glowing against the grey pillar they’ve lashed him against. Dark lines split across his white skin; he’s been whipped, his blood wet and gleaming still. Athos lifts his head, his blue eyes widening, and Aramis knows it’s a trap.

That doesn’t matter, and Aramis runs to his brother, knife already out as Athos shakes his head.

“They will come for you.”

“I’m getting you out of this.” 

“Give me the dagger and you use your sword; two blades will be faster.”

Aramis smiles; as usual, Athos is already ahead of him, and everyone else.

Five of Victoire’s men, draped in black and wearing bone-white opera masks, emerge from the shadows with guns raised. 

Aramis is ready for them; was ready thirty seconds ago. He turns.

From one breath to the next, nothing exists except the long nose of the ivory mask; a floating target in a sea of black. There is nothing but the beat of his heart as he lifts his arquebus and squeezes the trigger. 

Reality shifts; first the masked man is alive, then a bullet is passing clean through the top of his mask, fraying the white silk and imploding inside his skull, then he is dropping to the ground, dead.

The measure of time warps again, speeding forward, and Aramis spins to the side, running past Athos and weaving into the corner of the clearing, desperate to avoid the burst of responding fire.

He knows they have to reload, and so will he, but he doesn’t know how to achieve that at the moment. If he was Athos, he’d have a plan, but he isn’t, and there’s nothing-

“Aramis!” 

It’s the fourth time his name has been called, on this mad night of Victoire’s mazes and mind games, and this time the sound of it makes his heart take a glad, powerful leap. 

D’Artagnan comes blazing around the corner, running full tilt towards another masked man and felling him in one deadly slash of his sword across the man’s throat. Arterial blood arcs outward, spraying d’Artagnan’s sleeve as he lowers his arm, and another body drops.

It’s a distraction, and Aramis uses it. As the other three men face d’Artagnan, who laughs darkly, beckoning them forward, Aramis’s unerring fingers drop powder and find the ramrod in his pouch, pushing down the barrel of his gun. 

A crashing sound; Porthos comes roaring through a hedge, hacking with a dagger, and then the adrenaline is flooding Aramis’ system. 

He’s aware of d’Artagnan sprinting to Athos; there’s a quicksilver flash as metal rips through rope, and Aramis knows that his youngest and oldest brothers are in each other’s capable hands.

He senses the bodily hurricane that is Porthos; the crushing of bones, the soft whump of punches, the snap of a breaking neck. 

There is another mask moving towards him, creeping like mist from a corner, but Aramis already has him in his sights, and it’s a single upward swing of his arm and caress of his hand against the trigger, and the death toll mounts higher for Victoire’s men.

And then, the game is over. Five bodies are heaped on the ground, lumpen black cloaks marring the pale stones.

Athos is slumped against d’Artagnan, who has his arm around his brother’s waist, supporting him. Porthos is tying the knot of his bandana.

Aramis breaks the silence, grinning at Porthos.

“Coming through the hedges was against the rules.”

“Good thing I like breaking ‘em,” returns Porthos, eyes glittering with amusement. 

“We don’t have the key,” Aramis says on an exhale, pushing a shaking hand through his sweat-soaked hair. 

“Are you sure?” smiles d’Artagnan, and pulls a shining, filigreed key from inside his shirt.

Porthos squints, then bursts out laughing, and Aramis is sinking to his knees in relief when there are more footsteps and shouting from within the labyrinth. 

“Treville,” says Athos, closing his eyes.

“And the whole bloody regiment, sounds like!” adds Porthos, and the four friends look at each other, smiling, the weight of the past few hours evaporating into the first streaks of dawn in the sky.

Suddenly, the day is alive with possibility.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a bit rough, and missing quite a bit of plot and context. 😄 I wrote this in a rush, though, so I'm hoping it's atmospheric and fun enough to make up for it! I was aiming for a quick shot of muskie adrenaline!


End file.
